Wednesday, 24 February 2010

This week I am not going to let you guys think too much – this week I want to know all your secret bits and bops that you use to make blogging easier for you.

I am going to share with you three bits of software that I just could not manage without and I do mean could not manage without.

Window Live Writer

For people who have been with me from the beginning on the blog you all know that I swear by WINDOWS LIVE WRITER – I am probably one of the few bloggers who actually do not know how to post directly from the blogger new post setting. I have never posted directly from the blogger post setting.

WLW is the all rounder piece of kit for me. My template is set into mine so I can preview my work before I post – I can add plug-in as and when suitable.

Picture manipulation is a breeze – Fonts coordination is so easy. Really I cannot say enough good things about WLW. One of the ultimate best thing about WLW for me is that from that one piece of software I can get into all the blogs that I own or assist with…. I don't need to physically go into them…

BBCodeXtra 0.2.5.6

This is a download I found while doing one of my many blog idling moments – This is a add on to Mozilla Foxfire and what it does is make doing stuff like formatting text so much easier.

It basically sits at the end of your cursor and all it needs is a right click and you easily italics, bold, add Url, underline and other neat stuff. So forget about copying and pasting codes to get the formatting that you need…

The only draw back is that it only works in Foxfire – but as that is my main browser I don’t have a problem – it makes my life so much easier

I can’t stress enough how important it is to use a decent browser. I am one of those user who don't use Internet explorer – I have not used it in more than 5 years…

I have three browsers on my computer - Mozilla Foxfire, Chrome and Opera that I use. My main Browser is Foxfire – just because of the plugin’s and the ease at which I am able to manipulate the back end of my blog. It is also a stable browser for me and software updates are a breeze..

I use Chrome as a backup for when things go haywire – some times when things go wrong all it takes to remedy the problem is logging in through another browser…

I am sure I don't have to sell you guys on any of these however if you know of another one shout out and let me know…

So let me know all the tips and tricks that you use to make your days on the net easier… Be creative with your suggestion the sky is the limit…

Wallpaper

Music Player

Note Pads

Plugin’s

Add-ons

Picture managers….

You get the idea – tell me all..

16
Speak To Me:

I rely heavily on my free EverNote account. I could NOT manage the Misadventures series without it. I also use it to save book reviews and recommendations and all sorts of things that I'd like to remember. MUCH easier to deal with than bookmarks.

I also rely heaving on the starring feature in Google Reader - when I write a linkity post, I work back through the items I've starred during the week.

I use Picasa and FxFoto to handle and edit my photos - not fancy, but definitely good enough for the pictures I take!

Ummm. Ya lost me. LOL I just press "new post" and start typing. I struggle with WordPress at Wave's because it will NOT let me post a video. It strips the fricking code EVERY time. Lynn can put the code in an it works but it won't for me. I save, look at the html and the code is gone, vanished, poof. I'm not sure if it's because I'm using Firefox? Which makes no sense. I should try it at work where we have to use IE. I want to do another post but the video is essential and I'm just avoiding it because it makes me freaking nuts. Blogger is way easier.

I use firefox, I'm not sure it's "better" than IE as I don't use lots of fancy schmancy stuff when I'm on-line. I just need a favourites menu and the forward and and back buttons. As I said, at work we have no choice so I'm used to IE but again, I only use it to browse and write the occassional post so it serves my purpose. My daughter uses Chrome on our other computer.

I'm loving the MacBook I purchased recently and it has streamlined and made blogging so much easier. Maybe because my old PC was, well old and breathing it's last. I still use it for my eBookwise though because it isn't Mac friendly.

I like the Safari browser, very quick and the finder feature. There has been a learning curve with Photoshop - a big one, but I'm very slowly getting there.

I absolutely love the BBCodeXtra. It works great for me as I only use Firefox. I rarely have a problem with Firefox and I find it works much better for me than IE.

Wallpaper... pictures that I take

Music Player... iTunes

Picture managers... I use Picasa to store all my pictures and have accounts at Photobucket and a couple of other places to play with the pics.

I use Blogger and it works really well for me. Although I've tried the new posting feature and hated the way the pictures behaved. I went back to the old version. I really like Google Reader and Google Docs.

I've always just typed directly into Blogger and it works for me. I rarely need to do anything fancy with my blog posts and I like the way Blogger has recently changed things so that adding pictures is easier - that always used to be a pain to do. The only complaint I've got is that they've removed the spellcheck button, but as I use Chrome, it automatically checks spelling for you so I've managed OK.

WordPress - the format Wave uses - is a little more cumbersome but I've got used to it now.

Great post. I'm definitely going to be trying the BBCodeXtra. It sounds like it will be really useful!The Windows Live Writer sounds interesting, but I'm on a Mac. Wordpress works great for me (though on my DIK posts, Blogger drives me nuts).

I think I'm going to have to check out Evernote. My guy uses his on an iPhone app, and loves it, but I never thought about using it for my laptop. I use the Mac's Stickies a lot, but I like the idea of the notes being available from any where with net access.